Tragic Fishing Moments 



an old trunk rod, a little old " Jimmie Green " reel and 

 a line which I had pensioned three years before. A 

 pack-horse trip is hard on good tackle. Getting this 

 outfit rigged up, I hit the stream not a baby brook 

 but a real man sized trout stream. Whipping the likely 

 looking places with fair results, I worked downstream, 

 finally coming to a place where a great ledge of rock 

 turned the waters of the stream square to the left 

 for twenty yards or so, forming a great swirl at the 

 foot of a long heavy rapid. Into this swirl from the 

 east, slipping down along the base of the ledge, ran 

 an eight or ten foot stream of crystal clear water. 

 Pretty? Man dear, when my gaze took in the possi- 

 bilities of that place I could just naturally smell trout 

 on the breeze ! 



Slipping down along the bank to the junction of the 

 streams I dropped a Royal Coachman on the smaller 

 and as it floated out on the swirl, a splendid trout ap- 

 peared. Not with a spectacular rush, but in rather a 

 slow matter-of-fact manner he came up, opened a face 

 which could have taken a rabbit and gobbled that Royal 

 Coachman. I was too astounded to move of my own 

 volition and whether I struck from force of habit or 

 the trout just closed that big face on the hook and 

 forced home the barb, I have not yet figured out, but 

 at any rate it was but an instant until both the trout 

 and I came to life. I tried to keep him in the swirl, 

 but he had different ideas on the subject and I dare 



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